


memento

by Akaihyou, Gondolin, silkylustre



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, Banter, Friendship, Gen, Humor, PTSD mentions, Podfic & Podficced Works, Podfic Length: 20-30 Minutes, Team Bonding, aftermath of mind control, minor alien invasion, sniperbros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-13
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-06-22 14:51:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15584325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akaihyou/pseuds/Akaihyou, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gondolin/pseuds/Gondolin, https://archiveofourown.org/users/silkylustre/pseuds/silkylustre
Summary: “Hear that, Coulson?” Tony says to the air, then leans into him conspiratorially. “In case he bugged the place. Again.”Bucky doesn’t laugh, but he does smile at Tony and his antics. He is still figuring out if he’s always quite this obnoxious or if he’s playing it up for him. He’s leaning more towards the former.





	memento

**Author's Note:**

> Canon is merely a suggestion. I will never get over the absence of Jarvis, so Jarvis is staying forever, sorry Vision. Civil War never happened, but Sam is in the team because I say so. (Though I have been out of the fandom for so long that I have never written Sam before. He’s the one I’m less sure about, but, hey, it’s not like this fic is going up for a most IC award anyway. I had fun writing it.)
> 
>  
> 
> Written and recorded For Pod_Together 2018. Many thanks to the mods for getting us all together.

 

Listen to the podfic, [right here!](http://silkylustre.parakaproductions.com/Marvel/Memento.mp3) (to save, right-click)!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every morning, even before opening his eyes, Bucky reminds himself of the date. Each morning, Bucky thinks about the day before, and about the fact that, when he does eventually look at the clock, he will find no gaps, no lost days or months between the last time he closed his eyes and the present moment.

 _My name is James Buchanan Barnes. My current location is the twenty_ _-_ _fifth floor of Avengers Tower, 200 Park Avenue, New York. Today is the twentieth of June twenty-sixteen, and I remember everything I did yesterday._

But, if at all possible, Bucky avoids sleep. His therapist scolds him for that every time, but, after all, what’s a supersoldier serum for, if you can’t use it to run from your problems for a few days? Most of the other people in his group at the VA have confessed they’d do the same in his place, while Sam hides his face in his hands and cusses out both him and Steve for being terrible examples.

Steve, who had definitely noticed the heavy bags under his eyes, but he’s been nice enough not to say anything. Steve, who understands more than he’s letting on. It is so painfully obvious that he’s trying to be strong for Bucky, not letting himself slip and grieve and hate this century at all. If what Stark - the new Stark, and isn’t it absurd, thinking of Howard as a father - says is true, Steve had a lot of trouble sleeping at first, too.

“He went through… how many punching bags, Jarvis?”

“Twenty-six, sir. All between one and four in the morning, and this is just in the first three weeks here. If only I could hack SHIELD’s systems, I’d have data from his first days after being found, too.”

“If only!” Tony laughs, eyes crinkling with mischievous mirth. “But we know we’re no match for them, right, buddy?”

“I’m afraid my programming is not up the challenge, sir,” the AI replies, and Bucky could swear he was laughing internally. Which doesn’t make sense, but, well, _Tony_ had programmed him, so anything is possible.

“Hear that, Coulson?” Tony says to the air, then leans into him conspiratorially. “In case he bugged the place. Again.”

Bucky doesn’t laugh, but he does smile at Tony and his antics. He is still figuring out if he’s always quite this obnoxious or if he’s playing it up for him. He’s leaning more towards the former.

“But,” he goes back to the first topic, as he does, jumping back and forth, “Now I have faaaar better punching bags. Reinforced,” he waves a hand, “And all. You can try them too, see if you can beat Cap’s record.”

Tony wrinkles his nose like PTSD-fuelled insomnia is nothing but a small yet persistent annoyance. It inexplicably reminds Bucky of his mother’s expression when she was wearing uncomfortable shoes. There must be something wrong somewhere in that comparison, he knows, but at the same time Tony’s attitude is such a relief for Bucky. There is no fear or pity in him, and no expectations either for him to be meaner, or gentler, to be more like the 1930s Bucky, to be more traumatised, or less, to act serious… It’s just pure Stark bitchiness and a constant low level annoyance towards the whole universe, save for, maybe, Miss Potts and Doctor Banner. Everything, from a broken toaster (thanks, Dum-E) to the board of SI, from Bucky’s issues to alien invasions, is received by Tony with the same level of grumpiness, as if the universe had personally offended him, but not in a particularly bad way. In these short few months, Bucky has come to realise that Tony seems to always expect shit to blow up in his face - both literally and metaphorically. Bucky isn’t quite sure if Tony expects him to blow up soon too.

 

So when _giant alien lizards_ attack New York, Tony sounds as bored as he does when Clint and Natasha try to goad him into playing Call of Duty _again_.

“Great. Giant alien lizards. I was so looking forward to something like this,” he comments in a flat monotone as the alarms blare out, while the armour falls into place around him with fluid, mesmerising motions. “Please, go ahead, I only had to get that window changed twice this month, I was starting to worry the local economy would go bankrupt without me rebuilding half the tower every week.”

Clint gets up to the roof and laughs. “You think you’re joking, but there’s a guy who lives in my building who says your contracts alone cover his rent.”

“Remind me, why do you have an apartment in NY when there’s an entire floor with your name on it here?”

“A guy needs his privacy sometimes.”

“Your floor has personalised access codes!” Tony scoffs, clearly irritated, blasting away a huge greyish lizard.

“Jarvis knows it when I masturbate. It’s creepy.”

“Eh,” Tony answers, and if he weren’t in the armour he’d be shrugging. And how did this happen anyway, Bucky knowing Tony’s voice so well he can match it with his moods and his little quirks without even needing to see his face?

“But he’s _Jarvis_ ,” Tony continues, as if that is an explanation to absolutely everything. Maybe for him it is.

“My video feeds are programmed to interrupt transmissions to the mainframe when activities of a private nature are detected,” the AI informs them gently.

“Hey!” Tony exclaims in outrage, “So if one of my hookups had tried to murder me after we’d fuc-”

Steve cuts in: “As much as I appreciate the fact that you all feel comfortable enough to make conversation, I’d like to remind you to focus more on something more urgent, like, I don’t know, the giant alien lizards that are attacking us?” He doesn’t sound even a bit breathless as he jumps on a car and kicks one of the creatures on the jaw, breaking its neck with a crack so loud they can hear it over the comms.

“Wow, Chuck Norris would be proud of you, sonny,” Tony comments.

Bucky feels the need to add: “According to a recent poll on Buzzfeed, the public is in near-perfect agreement that Captain America would beat Chuck Norris in a fistfight.”

“Buzzfeed,” Clint asks, no, comments, stunned, “I was going to make a joke about Lizards Of Unusual Size, but the ninety-year old soldier is making me feel like a fossil with my eighties references.”

Steve sighs, Sam laughs so hard he nearly lets a creature bite off one of his wings.

“I can’t sleep at night. And, unlike my BFF, I don’t have seventy _full_ years of pop culture to catch up on,” Bucky shoots the lizard in question from his perch, making it spray grey blood all over Sam. Then he gives a little salute to Clint, who is on top of a building right across from him, “Anyway, The Princess Bride is a timeless classic.”

There is a moment of silence, followed by an explosion that takes out at least three lizards, caused by one of Hawkeye’s exploding arrows. Then Clint mutters: “The more I run that sentence through my mind, the more terrifying it sounds. _BFF_.”

“In the eighties I killed so many people I remember the whole of Metallica’s discography. All that counts, anyway,” Bucky continues, partly to enjoy Clint’s reaction and partly out of sheer masochism and need to punish himself. Sometimes he feels a perverse sort of pleasure in digging up his past and mentioning offhandedly all the horrible things he’s done. To remind the others who he was, to keep them from getting too close. He isn’t sure why he does it, but their trust and ease around him at times feels just plain wrong.

“I know what you’re doing,” Sam answers instead, casually dropping a bin on top of a lizard, crushing it.

Clint gets two enemies with a single arrow, then allows himself a tiny, self-congratulatory fistpump, before going back to the conversation: “And I will remind you yet again that it wasn’t you, that there was nothing you could have done, and that many of us have done far worse both out of choice or because aliens and gods,” he finishes. He gets Bucky, and he also gets guilt, in general.

“Yep,” Tony confirms, “Merchant of Death right here. And no, Clint, this is not permission for you to use it when the microwave attacks you.”

“The fact that you have a sentient microwave says it all.”

Sam, as always, asks the important questions: “Why do you _keep_ the sentient microwave?”

“Well, they also keep deadly cold war relics,” Bucky comments, “Surely housing the Winter Soldier is a far worse life choice than a murderous house appliance.”

“Barnes, honey,” Natasha cuts in with her faux sweet voice, “If you want, later we can dissect all the torture methods I’d already learned _and_ used before I was sixteen, but for now listen to Cap and focus on fighting. This is a battle, not a therapy session.”

One of the beasts opens its huge jaw to try and bite her arm off, but before it can make another movement an electric shocks fries it from the inside. “Eat this!” Natasha yells with great satisfaction. Bucky finds her adorable when she is murdering things, but he’ll never say it out loud since, strangely enough, he really wants to keep breathing now.

“Am I a genius or am I a genius?” asks Tony from above, “Tell me your new Widow Bites are the shit.”

“I would, but then I’d have to use them on you to keep your ego under control.”

“Ouch. So cruel!” Iron Man puts a hand upon his heart and goes in free fall for a few seconds, getting dangerously close to the ground. A dozen of the enormous lizards slither close in a surprisingly coordinated effort and get ready to jump on him without realising that the central blaster is glowing, ready to unibeam them at full power. They get taken out in moment, exploding with a wet and disgusting sound and the smell of burnt meat.

After that, it basically becomes cleanup.

 

The armour peels away piece by piece, going straight into a sterilising storage, designed and built right after a particularly grim battle with the Mole Man’s creatures, which has since been used far more times than Tony would care for.

“I probably have lizard guts up my ass. This shit is everywhere.”

“Do you think,” Steve asks, with a disgusted expression that Bucky hasn’t seen on him since that time Dum Dum had offered him raw rat’s meat because “we’re behind enemy lines, Cap, we can’t light a fire and our rations won’t last forever.”

“Do you think Captain America’s image would suffer too much if I just shaved my head? No amount of showers could possibly get rid of this filth.”

Bucky doesn’t comment, but makes a beeline for the elevator and starts peeling off his clothes. He feels filthy and sticky with blood. To the Winter Soldier, personal hygiene had never been a priority. If he needed to continue a mission, he’d do it regardless of how much blood was on him.

All the day’s grime is starting to solidify under his fingernails and on his face, but when he gets to his room, he hears the water going and notices with extreme pleasure that the bathtub is full _and_ the shower’s going, steam coming from the near-boiling water, exactly how he likes it.

Jarvis can watch him masturbate whenever he wants, if these are the advantages of having an all-knowing AI in the house, Bucky thinks, practically throwing himself under the spray.

After scrubbing himself off, he turns off the shower and plops into the tub. That bathroom is bigger than his whole Brooklyn apartment, but in that moment the architectonic extravagances of the tower are a blessing.

“Jarvis, you’re the best,” he sighs, before plunging his whole head underwater. When he comes up, he adds: “And Tony. And whoever designed this place. I think I might never leave this tub.”

“It wouldn’t be advisable, Sergeant Barnes. The human body can only resist being immersed in water for a limited number of hours, even if, possibly, with the effects of the serum-”

“Shut up and learn to take a compliment, Jarvis. You’re worse at it than Tony.”

Bucky could have sworn the AI just sighed.

“And stop calling me Sergeant Barnes.”

“I will, James.”

James is okay. He can work with James.

 

Bucky’s phone goes off in the middle of the night, while he is standing in front of two broken coffee makers and a guilty-looking Dum-E. It’s fascinating how something without a face can still be so expressive. He could have made coffee in his room, but, truth be told, he was hoping to find someone else awake. Once Bucky ran into a very jet-lagged Pepper making breakfast at midnight. She even shared her pancakes. Thor, whose internal clock is set to another planet’s time, is often awake at odd hours. Sometimes, in the wee hours of the morning, it’s possible to run into Coulson, typing away at his tablet, no tie and shirt unbuttoned, drinking a smoothie. If Bucky ever noticed a hickey on the agent’s neck, he kept it to himself. Like he keeps to himself comments on the fact that Coulson doesn’t live here.

But right now there is just Dum-E trying to be helpful, and James looks down at the robot feeling helpless.

Clint’s name appears on the screen and Bucky worries for a moment.

“Yeah?”

Clint is breathless, but otherwise he sounds fine. “Wanna help me get my dog back?”

Bucky only asks: “Where are you?”

He’s grown fond of the little mutt, but Lucky has a talent for getting into trouble that rivals Clint’s own and the same propensity for taking on enemies twice his size and better armed.

“Home.”

Without really thinking, Bucky throws on a shoulder holster and a jacket, and leaves the tower still in his red, white and blue shield-patterned pajama bottoms. They have so much Avengers merch around, it’s hard to avoid.

He borrows Steve’s motorcycle and breaks nearly every speed limit to get to Clint’s apartment block. Last time Lucky got in trouble there was a whole mob gang about to take over the neighborhood: the dog had tried to bite a guy’s hand off and then chased the boss’ car for three blocks. Maybe this time he’s just chasing squirrels, but better safe than sorry.

 

Clint is already downstairs standing in front of the door with a pizza box in one hand his bow in the other.

He looks as tired as Bucky feels, which is saying something, but he cracks a grin at Bucky’s appearance. “I’ve got the Black Widow ones,” he says, nodding towards his pants, “Also, I think there’s a new guy around.”

“What do you mean new guy?”

“One of the regular dealers around here said he got beat up by someone who sounds at the very least enhanced. He was wearing a tight suit and all. Tonight there’s been police sirens all around and Lucky ran off chasing after one. So I called for backup. Cause I don’t know this new guy’s angle. Phil would be proud.”

 _Phil_. Bucky grins at Clint’s chaotic and sleep deprived explanation and at the slip. Yeah, sure, Jarvis’ video feeds are the only reason Clint doesn’t live full time at the tower.

“Smart move,” Bucky comments instead, then takes the pizza box and crams it into his backpack together with his spare ammo. “Jump on, we have a dog to catch.”

“Thanks, man.”

“Not like I had anything better to do,” Bucky says, then revs the engine so that anything Clint might want to say gets drowned out.

They go for a few minutes, then slow down and start peering down the mouth of every dingy alley they can see. True enough, ambulance and police sirens seem to never stop in the night, and Bucky wonders for a moment if they should call the others, if anything big is going on.

He doesn’t have to wonder for long, though, because there is some furious barking coming from somewhere in the vicinity. He stops the bike in the middle of a sidewalk and dismounts, gun already in hand by the time his feet touch the pavement.

Together with Clint they stalk silently towards the small back alley, complete with cans of old frying oil and giant bins. And a very dirty Lucky, who immediately runs towards them.

“Aw, bad dog,” Clint says, without real heat, and he’s about to lower his weapon to scratch the runaway, when Bucky hears a muffled groan coming from further along the street. He signs to Clint to keep his guard up.

“Who’s there?”

The sudden silence is suspicious - or maybe James is paranoid. It’s a real possibility, in his line of work. It’s also true that there is a very long list of people who try to kill him on the regular. A little paranoia can be healthy.

Once again, it’s Lucky that leads them on. He runs back towards one of the bins and barks twice very clearly in its direction.

This time a very human voice, coming from inside the bin, groans in pain.

While Bucky keeps his gun trained on the bin, Clint steps closer and takes a look inside. His shoulders visibly relax as soon as he does.

“Dude looks beat.”

“Dude can hear you,” the voice croaks from inside the bin, and yes, sounds like he is in a lot of pain.

“Sorry. What happened to you?”

“I fell.”

“He fell,” Clint repeats at Bucky, unconvinced.

“You fell into a bin last week,” Bucky says, shrugging, “It happens.”

“Exactly! It happens to me. It’s not a normal thing. Was it a normal thing in your days, James?”

“Well, Steve got dumped into his fair share of bins.”

“Got dumped, though, not fell,” Clint retorts, then turns back to the mysterious guy, “Who threw you into the bin? Can you move at all?”

The voice, deep and strained, replies: “No one and no, I think something is broken. Why are you here, what’s it to you?”

“Civic duty,” Clint replies, then adds: “My dog led us here. He’s smarter than he looks.”

At last, Bucky decides that there is no immediate threat and lowes his gun, then steps closer to peer at the stranger. He is wearing a mask and a whole lot of leather and has taken a beating. There are weirder things around New York. He then climbs over the side of the bin, saying: “Steve would never let me live it down if I just left people in bins.”

“This Steve you keep mention- hey!” they guy yelps when Bucky starts prodding at him.

“I’m just checking you’re not too hurt to be moved. It’s a wonder you haven’t snapped your damn neck.”

“Say,” Clint asks, leaning casually over the side, “You don’t happen to know who beat up Short Denny last week, do you?”

“You know who he works for, right?”

“What I want to know is, who do _you_ work for?”

“No one. I just want this place to be safer.”

Clint scoffs. “That’s what they say before they start going ‘round collecting payments and cracking skulls.”

At that point, Bucky interrupts. “I don’t think you’re going to die,” he then lifts the guy like he weighs nothing and helps him out.

Lucky barks once and the man winces. “Your dog is loud.”

“It’s not mine, it’s Clint’s dog.”

“He’s his own. He just comes around for pizza sometimes.”

Gently, Bucky lowers the man to the ground. “You might have a concussion. Is there anyone you can call?”

He peels off a glove, then gets a ridiculously old phone out of a pocket. There is something odd about the careful way he types in the number - on an actual keyboard! The phone is just that old. Tony would have kittens.

The conversation that follows sounds oddly familiar to both Clint and Bucky. The guy is apologetic about having gotten into trouble again. Someone on the other end is raising their voice. Then he puts the phone down and says: “She’s coming to pick me up.”

They sit down on the pavement to wait and Bucky takes out the pizza box now bent in an awkward v.

“Want some?”

“Hey,” Clint protests, “That’s my pizza, you don’t get to offer my pizza.”

“I wasn’t going to take it anyway,” the man they rescued from the bin says.

“You got a name?” Clint asks.

“Are you Hawkeye?”

“No, I’m his evil twin. Fine, no name. You’re annoying, maybe we should have left you in the bin.”

Bucky smiles around a mouthful of pizza because he knows that, whatever he says, Clint would definitely not leave anyone like that. It feels good, knowing that he’s on a team with a person like that. Good that they can joke around and help someone who might or might not be a crazy lone vigilante and for once not have the fate of the world on their shoulders. It feels good to be on speed dial for things like a lost dog, and absolutely no murder required.

A car pulls up not long afterwards and a woman comes towards them. She is almost disappearing in a giant sweater and looks pissed like only someone who does night shifts can look pissed. She stops for a moment to star at Clint and Bucky, but if she is surprised, she doesn’t say.

She helps dumpster guy up, looking him over critically.

“I’ll be keeping an eye on you,” Clint says in his best threatening voice. Which at this time of night, is not a very good threatening voice. It’s more like the voice of someone who really wants to yawn, but feels it would be unprofessional.

As the guy in red leather is bundled into the car, they hear him ask the woman: “Am I hallucinating? Did I actually get fished out of the trash by two Avengers? That’s embarrassing.”

She laughs at him and closes the door.

Clint, Bucky and Lucky don’t bother moving from where they are now comfortably sitting on the floor, and eat the sad, cold pizza that by now tastes entirely of cardboard. It’s not half bad.


End file.
